Tomatoes can be grown throughout the year & its plant is grown by transplantation method. Seeds are first sown indoors in seedling trays or outdoors on seed beds. Later the seedlings are transplanted into containers or in raised beds.

Indoor growing containers can be seedling trays/ seed cups/ small polybags /seed beds filled with growing medium like Coco Peat.

Sowing Techniques: Take a seedling tray with medium sized cells having drainage holes at the bottom and fill the cells/cups with a moist coco-peat medium, hold the tomato seeds on your left palm & sow 2-3 seeds per cell/cup avoid sowing them very deep since tomato seeds are small in size. Place the seeds on the surface of the medium & push each seed a little inside the medium by using a pencil tip & cover it up with more coco-peat.

Keep the seed tray in a box or cover it with paper for the first 4-5 days to encourage faster seed germination by keeping the seedling tray indoors till the seeds germinate. Watering the seedling trays with a spoon in the first week by giving 2 tablespoons of water every day on each seed cells/cups in trays

If the seed beds are made outdoors, use well sieved fine soil as a sowing medium & make a raised bed from it. Cover the bed by making a temporary roof of the plastic sheet to protect them from heavy rain or direct sunlight. Watering can be used to give water in the form of a light shower on beds.

Seeds will germinate within the first 6-8 days & tiny sprouts will be visible, once seeds germinate keep the tray in an open partially sunny spot near the window & don’t cover the tray anymore.

The early two leaves will emerge from the second week of germination & these are false leaves called cotyledons. First leaves will emerge above cotyledons at the end of the second week & seedlings will start growing into a small plant, at this stage exposing the seedlings to more & more sunlight for leaf growth.

After the second week, keep only a single seedling per cell/cup by cutting off the weak, small & lagging seedlings with a pair of scissors it’s called thinning stage.

Four weeks after the seed sowing, your seedlings will be ready to transplant to big container pots or raised beds.

Ideal planting mixture for tomatoes is 2 parts of garden soil & 1 part of organic manure, or 1 part of garden soil, 1 part of coco peat & 1 part Vermicompost.

Transplant the seedling along with the root ball of a medium, without disturbing its roots into a regular 8-12 inch pot by placing a single seedling at the center for indoors.

Tomato seedlings can be transplanted deeper into the soil on raised beds with 60X45cm spacing & little portion of the lower stem & leaves can be buried inside to encourage more root formation in backyard